wwwBack in August, last year, Alison posted a blog article on Sharing your knowledge versus giving away your trade secrets and it got me thinking (probably why I have had a headache ever since). It was a great post and I particularly liked the concept around the idea of becoming the locally known ‘expert’ in the field.

So, I thought I would share with you something of my experiences along these lines, about how I am happy to tell people about what I do, even offer some ideas on how I do them, and why I’m not worried about doing so.

First of all I’d better tell you what I do: I’m an SEO Consultant, that’s a ‘Search Engine Optimisation’ Consultant for the uninitiated. Basically my job is to help websites get found in the Search Engines by raising the websites profile and having it appear higher in the listings than it would otherwise have done so.

Now, many things will affect this, some we have no control over (for instance when the website was created) and some we do (what content is on the website). My job is to try and ensure that as many of the things we can influence are done in a way that will help our cause, and as many things that may harm our cause are removed. For the purposes of this post I am going to just highlight four areas that you may or may not be aware of and discuss those.

To see we practise what I preach you can check out our SEO page  on website at and you will see the list of actions I give below included as part of what we provide in our Website Review Report. We are perfectly happy to tell people exactly what we will do, and what they could, if they wanted, do for themselves.

This of course is the catch, and why I am very comfortable giving away some of our secrets.

Knowing what to do and being able to do them well are two different things.

I could go on a plastering course and learn how to plaster. But I will guarantee you, even after having been on the course, it will be cheaper in the long run for me to get in someone who is good at it and pay them to do it well first time, than it will be for me to try to do it, do it wrong, and then have to pay someone to do it right afterwards.

But I digress, back to the things you should be looking to carry out to give yourself a better chance of being found in the Search Engines (this isn’t everything involved in a full SEO programme, but do these and you will have a good start).

 

#1 Review you page ‘code’ to ensure that there are no important errors:
Surely we want it to be error free don’t we? Well, yes, but some errors won’t affect your search engine rankings and some definitely will. The most important errors are those that will confuse the Search Engine as to what is ‘code’ and what is ‘content’. The search engines want to ignore code and index your content – so if they cannot distinguish what is code and what is content, then they will ignore the content.

 

#2 Review the search terms that you think people will look for you or your services under:
It is surprising how often we think we know what people will type in to the search engine to look for what we are offering, and be totally wrong.  There are various tools out there that can help you with this, but one of the easiest (and FREE! Though you do need to sign up) is Google’s own – that is the ‘Keyword Tool’ that comes with Google Adwords.

 

#3 Check you content:
you need to ensure that the page title (what is displayed by the Search Engines when you page is found) is relevant to the search term you hope to be found under AND help convince people that they have found the information they want. You need to ensure that you use the words on your page that people are looking for, but in a natural way and one that will not make people who read the content think ‘yeuch’ and leave! You also need to ensure that the page is laid out well with correct headings and sub-headings used (

#4 Other websites linking to you (backlinks):
This is where most people go most wrong. The conmen out there have built good business on tricking people into paying for 100s or even 1000s of links on random web pages (often directories) on the promise that the more backlinks you have the better result you get in the Search Engines.
Whilst not 100% inaccurate it IS 100% misleading. The search engines have got very good at identifying ‘good’ links from ‘bad’ ones and whilst they won’t penalise you per se for having ‘bad’ ones they certainly won’t help you.
The links you want are links where you have a reasonable hope that the person seeing the link would want to click it, come to your page, and interact with you in the way you would wish. This may just be to read what you have written, buy your product, or just call for more information.
Why are these links good? Because not only do you have the link, even if it is not worth anything to the Search Engines, you have a more likely opportunity that someone will actually be interested in following it.

And how has it worked out for me?

Well, while I can’t say that everyone I’ve made a ‘sales pitch’ to using the technique of ‘giving’ away what I do has turned into business, the majority have; and I think the most satisfying ones have been the ones who have gone away, looked into doing the work themselves and then come back and asked me to do it for them.

NOT, I hasten to add, because I get to be smug about them not using me straight away, far from it, but because having tried to do it themselves they REALLY appreciate the work I do for them; and being appreciated for what you do is surely one of the best feelings you can possibly have!

Oh, one last thing, don’t forget that getting people to your website is only half the battle. Getting them to do business once they get there is even more important, so ensure you have a good looking, effective, website in the first place! (Though, if you are here on the Kinetic site then you probably already know that!)

Kevin Hardy is a SEO consultant for JAM Business Media